On 15 December 2014 Thomas MacEntee announced a 13-week genealogy initiative called the Genealogy Do-Over. It’s Thomas’s initiative so I think Thomas’s words explain it best:

“Starting January 2nd, I’m setting my 20+ years of genealogy research aside and starting over. From scratch.

“Seriously. How many times have you thought about doing the same thing? Did you start your research the same way I did, by just collecting names, grabbing stuff from other online trees, or pasting text into your genealogy software? Lately, has the prospect of going back and citing sources and proving facts and evidence brought you down and ruined your genealogy buzz? Do you throw up your hands and say, “I give up!” only to return to the same review and edit process days or weeks later?”

By profession I am a project manager. I manage project managers and business analysts along with owning a well-defined process for one of the types of projects we do. A (lengthily) documented, systematic process that, although it has its foundation in law and regulation in order to be above reproach, has opportunity for creative latitude, individual judgment, and process experimentation in both planning and execution. In addition, we are constantly in a state of process improvement – reviewing for lessons learned and instituting best practices. I rock what I do.

All of my genealogy educational efforts are systematic and geared towards a post-retirement career providing genealogy consulting services, especially those related to planning and organizing research. I have a well-defined plan in terms of personal preparation, business structure, templates, style guide, etc. I am a planner that scares the average person.

My personal research is an embarrassment. So I need to do something so I don’t feel like such a fake. I obviously have the skills, why aren’t I using them??

Here’s what I’m doing as preparation. Basically, I’m making more accessible the redeemable information.:

Going through all of the paper folders and removing everything. Copies of source documents, however, go into a separate pile. I’ve gotten attached to my filing system and I’m thinking in terms of its structure so don’t want to reinvent that wheel.

“Archiving” the electronic files. I have most source documents scanned, along with many pictures, but I’ll re-evaluate the scan and its metadata before making the file active again.

Filing the remaining genealogy education and reference materials and making a master list of those files so it’ll be handy…and maintainable (aka, not duplicative because I went all fancy on naming).

Making a master list of personal templates I’ve developed or customized.

Creating an empty version of my research log. There’s many redeemable qualities to my log (the primary one being I actually find it user-friendly, therefore, I use it)

Establishing a new, hideously blank, tree in RootsMagic.

Many of these feed directly into the Genealogy Do-Over Topics for week 1 (2-8 January 2015) which include:

Setting Previous Research Aside

Preparing to Research

Establishing Base Practices and Guidelines

Yes, I have so many other things I’d rather do this year but every bit of that will merely be compounding my problem. I need to have share-able, documented data or the money I’ve spent on DNA tests is wasted. I need to have data ready not just for the next family historian but consumable for the next cousin who is just curious. What if there isn’t another historian and the consumable version is all that is wanted – have I written enough? I need to have a process in place so my research habits are automatic and not an afterthought or something to be dealt with another day. I need a Genealogy Do-Over so I can Do-It-Right. For me and mine.

John Newmark of the Transylvanian Dutch blog started a genealogy meme of Amanuensis Monday in February 2009. He defines amanuensis as a person employed to write what another dictates or to copy what has been written by another.

I should have posted this one earlier so you would know everything was all legit (you know, newspapers aren’t all that reliable). Here’s the marriage certificate that was completed within the Bride’s Book. Does this ever happen nowadays?

In the back of the book is a list of “Dates in Our Life.” I redacted some of the information since some of my uncles and my mother are still alive. I love Grandma’s handwriting (I found a whole pack of letters from her recently).

On the inside of the back cover, someone taped a picture of PaPa and Grandma with Bob, their first born. Also taped to the back is a card from PaPa. At some point, he got an old typewriter and would type all his cards (so we could read them). This card was to my grandmother, his “very sweet wondreful [sic] wife and sweetheart” from “your lover Rueben always will be.”

Working through the book 60 Hikes within 60 Miles: San Antonio and Austin, I spent last Sunday hiking the Comanche Bluff Trail (not Bluffs as the book says) maintained by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.

Austin Explorer information indicates the trail is free but there is a $4 day use fee. Pick up your trail map when you pay. Although they are supposedly in boxes at the trail heads, they were empty when we were there.

The trail skirts Granger Lake. If you start at the east trail head, there’s a circular Taylor Park option. Instead, hit the trail and go to Hoxie Bridge.

According to the onsite plaque for Hoxie Bridge:

Erected at the turn of the century over the San Gabriel River 3.5 miles east of Circleville, the Hoxie Bridge was washed 300 yards downstream during the devastating 1921 flood. In November, 1921 Austin Brothers was awarded a contract to reconstruct the bridge, and a team of convict laborers was sent from Huntsville to perform the work.

According to local legend, one of the prisoners, reputed to have been a troublemaker, was shot in the head by a guard. The mutilated body was hung from a tree as a grisly warning against further trouble at the work site. A cruel death … no burial. Perhaps these were the reasons that the prisoner’s headless ghost haunted the eerie river bottom east of the Hoxie Bridge. Area residents tell tales of lovers and late night travelers frightened by the apparition on Friday nights during the full moon. Mysteriously, a priest’s prayers for the prisoner’s soul ended the spectre’s vigil.

After the 1921 reconstruction, the bridge served Williamson County residents until it was dismantled in 1979 by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, who erected it at the present site in 1982…..

Taking a right at the end of Hoxie Bridge, the narrow trail meanders through the woods, with the occasional peek at Granger Lake.

Eventually, you reach Friendship Bridge. Both of these bridges have been moved from their original location.

Continue without using side trails and you’ll reach the west trail head. Head back from this point and you will have 3.5 miles. Markers along the path indicate every 10th/mile. Going all the way to the primitive campground will add about another 6 miles round trip.

Not much to see in terms of furry critters but plenty of butterflies and birds.

The park closes at dark unless you’re camping. And that’s when you’ll want to check out haunted Hoxie Bridge. On a Friday night with a full moon.

This post is part of a series of “Military Monday” posts where I follow PaPa monthly from induction (13 January 1943) to separation (17 February 1946). A complete list of all posts in this series can be found here.

Mission Accomplished: A History of the 547th AAA AW BN Mbl: January 10th, 1943, to September 2nd, 1945[ref]United States, and Ray E. Oakes. Mission Accomplished: A History of the 547th AAA AW BN Mbl, January 10th, 1943, to September 2nd, 1945. S.l: s.n, 1945.[/ref] (“Mission Accomplished“) edited by Captain Ray E. Oakes was published upon the return to the U.S. This book provides much of the information concerning PaPa’s training. Geeky did some legwork for you on this one:

The 547 AAA was a mobile Antiaircraft Artillery Battalion (aka Coast Artillery Battalion) Automatic Weapons (AW) which was attached 5 October 1944 to 21 May 1945. It was a component of the 95th Infantry Division of General Patton’s 3rd Army. PaPa was Sergeant Hugo Morris Webb, Sr. in the 2nd Gun Section (aka Popeye) in Battery B. He was credited with shooting down two of the three plans downed by Battery B.

PaPa’s official date of entry into active service was January 20, 1943. The day after Janis Joplin was born in Port Arthur, Texas. I’m not sure if PaPa had his copy of the Soldier’s Handbook[ref]COAST ARTILLERY TRAINING CENTER FORT MONROE VA. The Coast Artillery Journal. Volume 86, Number 1, January-February 1943. Ft. Belvoir: Defense Technical Information Center, 1943. <http://handle.dtic.mil/100.2/ADA499789>.[/ref] or not:

And then they were off to California.

According to Mission Accomplished (page 1), a “large group of newly inducted men from Fort Sam Houston, Texas got off the train…” the night of 30 January 1943. The train ride took five days and they had only been in the Army for a few weeks like PaPa. I can only assume he was on this train.

My family isn’t as lucky as Shelley Ferguson who has a series of letters that her father, Thomas Riley Ferguson, wrote. Part of the time he was at Camp Haan and I’ll occasionally include an extract from his correspondence. This is just a snippet so please check out Shelley’s website for a treasure trove of so much more! On July 11, 1943, Tom had this to say:

July 11, 1943
Camp Haan, California

Dear Mom,

We finally got here. This camp is near Riverside, Calif. That is about 55 miles from Los Angeles. This is Sunday and I’m down here under the swaying palm trees just taking life easy; soft music from the Service Club. Don’t you all wish you were in the army! … I am in the Anti Aircraft Artillery. It was part of the Coast Artillery but it has now branched off to an outfit itself. … I like the camp. They have better food than we had at Camp Lee….

PaPa had been there awhile, wonder if he stumbled across this newcomer?

In October of 1941, Camp Haan, according to the California Military Museum, had 353 buildings, 2459 tents, 5 chapels, a hospital, 18 miles of sewers, and 28 miles of streets. In 1942, Camp Haan was also serving as a prisoner of war camp. More about the camp to come….

By Wednesday, January 13, 1943, sixty miles from that newspaper report and 100 times that to Russia, my grandfather enlisted in the army. He was 19 years old. Also on Wednesday, Anne Frank was writing in her diary:

Terrible things are happening outside. At any time of day and night, poor helpless people are being dragged out of their homes….Children come home from school to find that their parents have disappeared….No one can keep out of the conflict, the entire world is at war, and even though the Allies are doing better, the end is nowhere in sight. [ref]Anne Frank Otto Frank and Mirjam Pressler, eds., The Diary of a Young Girl The Definitive Edition (New York: Bantam, 2011).[/ref]

In its heyday between 1910 and 1920, Gillett had a post office, a school, a hotel, a cafe, a meat market, a barbershop, a pool hall, a wagonyard, a cotton gin, a physician’s office, a blacksmith shop, a Woodmen of the World lodge, two general stores, two drugstores, and two saloons. A community church served congregations of Baptists, Methodists, Lutherans, and Cumberland Presbyterians. With the advent of the automobile, three garages were built at the community. Gillett’s population grew to 200 by the mid-1920s but declined markedly during the drought of the 1950s.[ref]Robert H. Thonhoff, “GILLETT, TX,” Handbook of Texas Online (http://www.tshaonline.org/handbook/online/articles/hlg16 : accessed January 20, 2013). Published by the Texas State Historical Association.[/ref]

PaPa’s highest grade completed was 7th grade (Enlisted Record and Report of Separation says 8 years of grammar school while the Separation Qualification Record indicates 7th grade was the highest grade completed), typical for Karnes County where the median number of years completed in 1940 was 7.4 years.[ref]U.S. Department of Commerce, Bureau of the Census, Sixteenth Census of the United States: 1940 Population Volume II, Part 6 (Washington: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1943), page 912; U.S.Census Bureau (http://www.census.gov/prod/www/abs/decennial/1940.html : accessed 20 January 2013).[/ref] According to the 1940 U.S. Census, 55.5% of the labor force was involved with agriculture.[ref]U.S. Department of Commerce, Bureau of the Census, Sixteenth Census of the United States: 1940 Population Volume II, Part 6 (Washington: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1943), page 873; U.S.Census Bureau (http://www.census.gov/prod/www/abs/decennial/1940.html : accessed 20 January 2013).[/ref]

This post starts a series of “Military Monday” posts where I follow PaPa weekly from induction (13 January 1943) to separation (17 February 1946). We’ll wind this series down on 22 February 2016. A complete list of all posts in this series can be found here.

John Newmark of the Transylvanian Dutch blog started a genealogy meme of Amanuensis Monday in February 2009. He defines amanuensis as a person employed to write what another dictates or to copy what has been written by another.

This week we take a look-see at my grandparents’ first “at-homes.” Do whut?, you may say. I dunno, I may say. Just follow along and let’s see….

Easter Sunday, April 13, 1941

Moved from Steel [Stell?] apt. to Brightwell apt. in the morning. Idell and Herman [HAHN] helped us and stayed for dinner. [I know we’ve discussed all the lunch/dinner/supper conventions so let’s not go there again. This seems to violate the definitions however. But we’re talking about rebels who go parking under bridges ifyaknowwhatImean so we’ll let them define it however they like.] In the afternoon, we all went to church [again, what kind of clock are we on? Church in the afternoon and dinner at noon??] out at Rabke [where they were married] and then ate supper at mother and dad [sic; Helen RABKE and Henry C. REINHARDT]. Later came home and Idell and Herman came by. They stayed until later, when they went out to Linderman and we went to bed.

Monday, April 21, 1941

San Jacinto Day and it is raining. Everyone seems to be at home or out of town [versus in town but not at home, I assume, sorry, Grandma, for being a smart mouth]. We slept late this morning and this p.m. we went out to the airport and drove around awhile. Then we went to Muellers and took supper with them. Came home about 8:15 and are ready for bed. [You’d think I’d insert a comment at the way the previous entry and this one ended but I just can’t bear to.]

Sunday, April 27, 1941

Rueben couldn’t work yesterday (Sat.) so this is our second day together. It has been raining since Friday nite. Idell and Herman came by on their way to and from Westhoff. R. and I both have a cold so we’ll retire early tonite. Wrote letters this p.m.

Sunday, May 18, 1941

We slept until about 7:45, when Rueben got up and went to town to get a paper. When he came back we stayed on the bed and read until about 9:30. Mother and dad came by on their way to Wagners. After dinner we slept awhile and then got dressed to ride around. Dady Henneke [ALfred HENNEKE] and the children came by, so we took them along. That nite we got Aunt Frieda and Lena [HENNEKE] and went to Yorktown for a joy ride.

John Newmark of the Transylvanian Dutch blog started a genealogy meme of Amanuensis Monday in February 2009. He defines amanuensis as a person employed to write what another dictates or to copy what has been written by another.

WARNING: “parking” content. Turns out, my grandparents had a thing for parking under bridges. People should do more of that.

Because we got married in the early spring, we did not take a long wedding trip. Our honeymoon lasted only from Saturday night until Monday morning. We did not mind because just being together and having each other was enough.

On June 18th to June 27th, Rueben got his vacation, so we called it our honeymoon. We left here (Cuero) Sunday (8th) at 8 o’clock. Aunt Lena and Lorene went with us, but we had our fun together. We ate dinner at the park in San Antonio and got to Comfort about 3:30 or later that afternoon. Ben [HENNEKE] was not at home when we got there, so Rueben and I went down to the river to get him. That night, we went to see Benitha & Johnny [BARON], but they weren’t at home, so we started looking for them. Rueben and I were alone, so we gave the others the “run

around” and rode around. We finally decided to go under the big bridge and park awhile. We got home around 10 that night. Monday morning we slipped off to Kerrville. Tuesday afternoon we went to Fredericksburg and Wednesday we spent the day below the bridge at Comfort. Thursday morning we went out to my folks [Henry C. and Helen RABKE REINHARDT] and stayed until Saturday afternoon. Idell and Herman [HAHN] went to Turner Hall and Yoakum with us. Sunday we spent the day at home.

(From the night we took our vows, unto this day (July 14), I have felt as if our life together had been one long honeymoon. I see no reason why the rest of our life together can’t seem the same and be even sweeter and happier than the beginning.

John Newmark of the Transylvanian Dutch blog started a genealogy meme of Amanuensis Monday in February 2009. He defines amanuensis as a person employed to write what another dictates or to copy what has been written by another.

We were married at the Rabke church by Rev. Keen of Yorktown, at 7:15 o’clock on Saturday night, April 5th, 1941. After the ceremony, we received congradulations [sic] and best wishes from friends and relatives on the outside, also a shower of rice.

We then went back to the house for supper [aka, dinner, the evening meal; historically, inner and supper – the light meal such as soup or suppe – used to both be served; my family has one evening meal, supper, which we call supper, unless we get all wild and crazy and call it dinner]. Of course, we were nervous and excited, but managed to talk nonsense, tell jokes, and eat a little. After supper Idell [Mueller Hahn] and I were alone in the bedroom, when Rueben came in and asked if I was ready to leave. Idell suggests we slip off, so when Herman [Hahn] comes in, we tell him to close the door. Rueben and I slip out the front way, while Idell and Herman try to keep the rest of the guests from suspecting what we are up too [sic]. We manage to

get away before anyone plays jokes on us. We waited at the end of the lane for Idell and Herman who came back to Cuero with us. We stopped at the Lower Inn for something to drink. There we leave Idell and Herman. We stayed in a cottage in ___. Although everything was new and strange to us, it was fun. Neither one of us slept much that night, but how happy we were, to know that we belonged to each other in the right way. We came back to Cuero Sunday morning and had breakfast at the Cuero Cafe at 9:30. We saw Uncle Ervin [Rabke?], Idell, and Herman before we went out to mother’s [Helen Anna Rabke Reinhardt] for the night. Monday morning we brought in the most important household utensils and that afternoon we moved into the Stell [Steel?] apartment.

(I started keeping house for my husband on April 8th, 1941, and I have never for one moment regretted my decision to marry him. No one could be kinder, sweeter, and more lovable than the man I married. I love him more than the night I took my vows and my prayer is – to keep him happy, to be a good wife, and keep him in love with me.